1. Field
This invention is in the field of low-fat sautes, yet employs a low-fat saute which can be substituted in a one to one ratio for many different kinds of sautes, including margarines, butters, oils, and shortenings, rendering a substantially similar food product in terms of taste and texture as if a normal fat saute were used and relies on butter as an emulsifier, rather than selecting a different emulsifier for each saute substituted. In the various embodiments of this invention, where a recipe calls for a certain amount of saute, the same amount of the invention may be substituted on a one-to-one basis for the amount of saute called for in the recipe.
2. Prior Art
Sautes are used widely in cooking to soften, flavor, or otherwise enhance foods. Fat in sautes prevents sauteed products from sticking to the saute pan. Also, fat provides the saute and the sauteed product with a desired flavor, consistency and texture. While fat is a key element of a saute's structure, taste and texture, it contains many calories. There is a need for a saute medium that mimics fat, but actually contains little fat. Thus, the challenge facing a low-fat saute is to reduce fat calories while retaining structure, taste and texture.
High fat sauteing requires a small quantity of fat (such as butter, vegetable oil, olive oil, or margarine) to be added to an open pan. The fat must be hot enough that when vegetables or meats are added they are seared at once, preventing the loss of juices.
Prior art low-fat cooking recommends sauteing with water or broth, then covering the pan. However, instead of sauteing using this process, vegetables or meats are steamed. The vegetables or meats are not seared and lack the taste that the fat imparts.
The prior art discloses a number of attempts to lower the percentage of fat in edible products by replacing fat with carbohydrate based products, including starches and maltodextrins, referred to collectively as saccharide polymers. Maltodextrins act as bulking agents taking the place of many of the physical characteristics of fats, but containing as many as 5 fewer calories per gram of dry edible product. Similarly, pregelatinized starches act as bulking agents.
Starches, including corn starch, potato starch, rice starch, and tapioca starch can be converted to water-soluble starches, including pregelatinized starches. These and other starches can also be converted to non-sweet nutritive saccharide polymers, including maltodextrins, through a process involving heat, gelatinization, hydrolysis, and additional refining. Maltodextrins are among the possible resulting partial hydrolyzates of various starches and have been defined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") as non-sweet nutritive saccharide polymers that consist of D-glucose units linked primarily by alpha 1,4 bonds having a dextrose equivalence (DE) less than 20. According to the FDA, maltodextrins are prepared as a dry powder "with safe and suitable acids and enzymes."
Dextrose equivalence reflects the amount of hydrolysis performed upon the starch and measures the amount of reducing sugar in each compound, 0 being the reducing sugar content of starch and 100 being the reduction power of dry glucose. As DE increases, freezing point depression, hygroscopicity, solubility, and osmolality increase, and molecular weight decreases. The lower the DE, the closer the maltodextrin is to starch. The higher the DE, the closer the maltodextrin is to corn syrup.
Starches can undergo physical changes, including pregelatinization, which increase the water solubility of the starch. Pregelatinized starches have no DE. Combining a maltodextrin with a starch decreases the dextrose equivalence of the overall product and decreases the product's stickiness and yields a full-bodied consistency. For example, a combination of rice maltodextrin DE-10 and potato modified starch pregelatinized, together which small amounts of whey protein and xanthum gum is known in the art and has been commercially available for years. The combination has a DE equivalent of 3. Adding starch, however, tends to make the product more viscous. Finding a proper balance between starch and maltodextrin and finding the proper DE is difficult and requires experimentation and testing.
Since these characteristics define various sautes, the selection of the proper maltodextrin and/or starch is pivotal for the proper texture and consistency of saute. In prior art fat replacement systems, replacement of the fats in foods with mere maltodextrins provided an unsatisfactory texture. One explanation for the texture loss in low-fat or no-fat cakes lacking an emulsifier in addition to maltodextrin was the protein denaturation caused by maltodextrin. As a result, emulsifiers were combined with maltodextrins in an attempt to improve the fat replacer's textural qualities. However, the prior art failed to reveal a universal emulsifier which can be used in conjunction with maltodextrin as a fat replacement for various sautes.
The substitution on a one-to-one basis of maltodextrins and one type of emulsifier for the fat in a variety of sautes is desireable because the resulting low-fat saute can replace butter, margarine, shortening, oil, and other forms of fat in sautes with a single emulsifier. However, the prior art revealed no low-fat formula which used a single emulsifier together with the proper combination of saccharide polymers and water and which provided a universal textural quality such that it could be used on a one-to-one basis as a replacement for the different kinds of fat in various sautes.